Theme
10:45pm July 28, 2014
Anonymous asked: Okay I get that you shouldn't be mean to people who self-diagnose, but there are some people who basically mock anyone with the disorders by self diagnosing and being idiots about it and basically collecting mental disorders without any idea of what people with the issues have to deal with. Like I mean I'm pretty sure this is a troll blog but I have seen plenty of people do this sort of thing that were completely serious about believing their self-diagnostics; the blog is orochimarukin

I know such people exist, although far more trolls pretending to be such people exist than such people actually exist, and far more people inflate the numbers in their head so that every time they see one they assume the existence of dozens.  I’ve known people like that.  Although often they are actually confused, not mocking, and there’s a huge difference between the two.  Being confused about your identity should not be a crime.  Nor should trying on identities, including neurodiverse identities, during periods like adolescence when trying on identities is practically obligatory and people do things like that and it really isn’t the big deal people make it out to be.  

But.

They do less harm, even at their worst, than coming down against self-diagnosis in general does.  And they do far less harm than assuming that self-diagnosis is always, usually, or even often like what they are doing.  Most people who self-diagnose are people who have taken months or years to research themselves and their conditions.  Most people who self-diagnose take it very seriously.

And I don’t think it’s fair to, when talking about self-diagnosis, jump to the worst examples.  Because they are outliers, and because most people who self-diagnose are doing something pretty legit, and because then it just spreads the idea that self-diagnosed people are people who randomly collect mental disorders and/or mock people with mental disorders.  Because that’s not what most self-diagnosed people do.  And even bringing them up over and over in conversation makes it sound like there’s more of them than there actually are.  (And I don’t count trolls.  Trolls are trying to stir you up.  I’m not going to go to that blog and look and judge someone, either.)